The United States of America is the leading power in the world. Our friends and our adversaries respect us in large measure because they know that we are steady. We are fact-based. We are serious.

The youth thing never really, from my vantage point, slowed me down. I think the harder audience for me to gain acceptance from was the career diplomatic corps that worked with and for me in the Africa Bureau.

Focus on something that stirs your soul, it's hard to excel at anything that you don't love.

We are safer if there are not nuclear arsenals around the planet that can be utilized, stolen, sold to terrorists and others who would do harm.

In this day and age, the U.S. and Europe do not have the luxury of focusing solely on a single region.

It's not the day in which I grew up, long time ago, where we had three news networks. No cable, no social media, no internet. Where what you see is what you got. We had basically straight journalism. We don't have that anymore.

I've taken my knocks here and there, but I believe my intentions are good. Doesn't mean everything I do is perfectly executed or I don't make mistakes. Of course I do.